Author Spotlight: Edward M. Young 

Posted: September 6, 2024

Retired financial executive, Harvard Political Science graduate, and historical author Edward Young knows the valuable lessons our histories can hold.  

His book, Building Engines for War: Air-Cooled Radial Aircraft Engine Production in Britain and America in World War II examines the radical production growth that took place during this period in history.  

About 30 years ago, Young co-authored a History of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation, the parent company of the Wright Aeronautical Corporation. During this time, Young discovered information that would later influence his research for Building Engines for War. 

“Wright had about 3500 employees in 1939, and built about 200 airplane engines per month. By 1943, they were building 1500 engines a month with a staff of over 71,000 employees,” Young said. 

Young described this find as “astonishing,” and sought to figure out how a singular company managed to expand their production by seven times without diminishing the quality of any engines.  

He met with Professor David Edgerton, Hans Rausing Professor of the History of Science and Technology and Modern British History at King's College, London. Together, they crafted a number of questions to answer while Young conducted his research: 

• How did America and Britain build more factories in such a short amount of time? 

• How did they expand staffing to accommodate for these new locations? 

• How did governments organize and finance engine production? 

• What kind of procedures took place within the factories? 

As Young researched, he learned more about Flow Production, and how this factory structure method helped America and Britain increase their production seven times over. 

“Imagine a river like the Mississippi, and tributaries coming into that river. There's a steady flow all the way across. You’d bring in raw materials at one end of the factory, layout your production lines according to the different parts being built, and by the end of the line you would have a completed engine. This saves 5 to 10 minutes an hour. It’s not a lot, but incrementally you end up saving days,” Young said. 

This heavily impacted the way that automotive and aerospace facilities developed in the 20th century. 

“The British motor vehicle industry built about 350,000 motor mobiles a year. The Americans built about four million. And between 1940 and 1945, the American airplane engine industry built about 800,000 engines,” Young said.  

Building Engines for War dives into the procedural details of how engine factories were built, funded, staffed, and restructured. A a lot of this info, however, was almost lost to history—after World War II, a large portion of important technical documents and manuals were thrown away as factories began to close down.  

While this made Young’s job difficult, he found a saving grace for his work.  

“What saved my research—and allowed me to write the book—were these companies and magazine writers who wrote about what the American and British government were doing. I think they were just trying to spread the knowledge. I’m glad they did, and what we ended up getting were these incredibly detailed articles about how they [factories] actually built these engines,” Young said. 

Building Engines for War: Air-Cooled Radial Aircraft Engine Production in Britain and America in World War II is currently available for purchase.